Saturday, October 14, 2017

Year A, Proper 23, Matthew 22.1-14 Dad cared.

Grace to you and
peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen

So, did that
lesson make you feel a bit uncomfortable.

It’s hard to say “The
Gospel of the Lord” immediately after reading “there will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth.”

That there is a
judgment,

That there is a
heaven and a hell,

That some are
saved, and some are not,

These are things
that we are increasingly uncomfortable with.

Many of us would prefer that it simply is not so.

During my
seminary years, one of the theological authors I read a lot of was John Cobb,
who wrote a book in 1975 titled “Christ in a Pluralistic Age”.

One of the basic
premises of that book was the notion that Christ transcended human culture and
religions in a way that he was present in all religions. It was a theological argument that basically
maintained that there are many pathways up the same mountain, but regardless
which pathway we chose, in the end we would all end up together at the summit.

This
understanding runs counter to any notion that “many are called, but few are
chosen.”

One of the
critics of John Cobb’s work, was to label it arm chair evangelism.

That is, instead
of having to do the hard work of going out into the world, of sharing the
Gospel with all people, and yes, seeking to convert them to Christianity, we
could just sit back in our arm chairs and declare that Christ was present in
all human religions, and in so doing, with one little stroke of the pen we have
accomplished what centuries of missionary work could not, namely, saving the
world’s many souls.

The problem is
that every once in a while, as we gather for worship, we hear words like this
from Jesus.

Words that speak
of some being saved, and others not.

Words that warn
of utter destruction for those that reject the invitation to the wedding
banquet.

And words which assert
in no uncertain terms, that salvation is not a universal condition, but
reserved for the few who have been redeemed.

Such a notion
seems antiquated.

And
many of us are hesitant to go there.

What happens in
the afterlife?

What about heaven
and hell?

Historically there
have been two major understandings within the Christian Church regarding heaven
and hell, between being saved or condemned.

We are part of
the Western Church, that part of the Church that originally was united under
the leadership of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, which we know today as the
Roman Catholic Church.

Even following
the Reformation and the establishment of the protestant churches, we in the
Western Church continue to be largely influenced by Roman Catholic teachings,
especially with respect to heaven and hell.

And in short,
those teachings include the belief that following the judgment, God will punish
the unbelievers by casting them out of his presence into a place of eternal
suffering, ‘where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’.

The problem with
this Western understanding of heaven and hell, and the judgment is that you are
left with a God who is first and foremost one who judges and condemns, who has
created an eternal torture chamber for the unredeemed, and who is capable of
condemning the vast bulk of humanity, billions of people whom he created, to
eternal damnation.

That’s not a
picture of a loving and merciful God.

And it is little
consolation that God spares a few.

God remains this
incredibly wrathful God whose primary act is one of vengeance for the
non-believer and unfaithful.

Personally I have
been drawn in recent years to the other understanding in the Christian Church,
namely that of the Eastern Church, what we know today as the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The Eastern
Orthodox Church followed the leadership of the other eleven Patriarchs of the
Church, not the Roman Bishop, and has recognized the Patriarch of
Constantinople as the first among equals, and the leader of the Church, not
Rome.

The Eastern
Orthodox Church prides itself on having maintained the traditional teachings of
the Church throughout the ages, and on a number of issues specifically rejects what they perceive to be the innovations of the Western Church, which by the
way, they consider the “Western Heresy”.

What the Eastern
Orthodox believes regarding the afterlife, is that all people will be in the
presence of God in the afterlife, in part because there is no place where God
is not.

Furthermore, God
does not condemn anyone to eternal punishment, for to do so would be counter to
his loving nature.

But, and this is
a big but, those who are not redeemed will experience being in the presence of
the righteous and holy God as punishment, intolerable, or to put it
differently, it will be a hellish existence.

But it is not
that God condemns them to such a fate, it is simply a matter that for those who
love what is evil and hate what is good, being in the presence of the all Good
and Righteous One will not be enjoyable, to say the least.

God’s only desire
is that all might be saved.

But that some are
not is the result of their own attitudes and the condition of their souls, not
because of God’s judgment raining down on them.

The
‘Christian life’ then, is to prepare ourselves to be able to enjoy being in the
presence of the Holy One, and not be destroyed by it.

But whether one
finds the Roman Catholic teaching, or the Orthodox teaching, to be most
attractive, BOTH are clear that not all will experience eternal salvation.

Many are called,
but few are chosen.

Still, many of us
in the modern world are hesitant to embrace this teaching of the Church.

For many of us,
to be saved by grace means everyone is saved.
Period.

There’s one small
problem.

That’s not what
the Bible teaches.

And
if we believe the Bible at all we can’t get around texts like the Gospel lesson
for today. Jesus doesn’t mince words
here. He is blunt.

I’m thinking a
lot about my Dad these days.

One of the major
concerns that occupied him throughout the final years of his life was that all
of his children and grandchildren might be saved.

For Dad that
meant that we must be baptized, confirmed, receive communion regularly, hear
the Word of God preached, and repent of our sins and hear the word of
forgiveness.

He was a very
traditional and orthodox Lutheran in this regard.

We are saved by
grace, yes, but this saving grace come to us through these means, namely the
sacraments of baptism and communion, the preaching of the Word, and the
forgiveness of sins.

To neglect these
things, is to put our salvation in peril.

Now there is some
motivation for getting up for Church Sunday morning.

What Dad would
maintain is that this stuff MATTERS.

It not only
matters for this life, but for the life to come.

Dad often struck
us as being too legalistic and not very gracious in his understanding. It often sounded like ‘you must do this and
that, to be saved’. And when he
expressed his concern about our eternal salvation, it often didn’t come across
well.

But now, following
his death, I will at least say this:

“Dad cared.”

Dad cared because
he believed that what we do, and what we believed in this life had a direct
effect on how we would experience the next life.

And so he did
what many of us feel uncomfortable doing, which is to raise the question of
salvation with those he loved.

That
was his mission. Unwelcome as it often
was, that was his mission that we might all be together in heaven.

We sometimes
wonder what our mission is as a congregation, and if we have a future.

Like so many
congregations in our country, we are experiencing declining numbers and an
uncertain future.

As we wrestle
with the issues that raises, it is easy to starting thinking that our mission
is to get more members.

Our mission is
NOT to get more members so that the congregation might survive.

Our mission IS to
share the Gospel with others so that they might survive.

One of the most
disturbing thoughts of all is that my failure, our failure, the Church as a
whole's failure to reach the unChurched will impact their eternal salvation.

One of my
seminary professors shared that his grandmother died with a profound sense of
holy grief at the failure of the missionary movement to save the world.

Perhaps that’s
putting far too much a burden on us.

Faith is not
something that we can give to others; it is a gift of the Holy Spirit.

One of the things
we should pray for is that the Holy Spirit might work through us, to create
faith in those who are called to salvation.

Why?

Because it
matters. It matters.

If it doesn’t
matter, why are we here? I mean, in all due
respect life in the Church is not that great and fun.

If it doesn’t matter
why invest so much effort and money into sustaining this or any other
congregation?

But if it does
matter, then what more can we do?

What resources to
we have to share the Gospel?

And is there
anything at all in life that is more important than this?

A personal prayer
I’ll share with you comes from a song by Steve Green:

"Oh may all who
come behind us find us faithful!
May the fire of our devotion light their way
May the footprints that we leave
Lead them to believe
And the lives we live inspire them to obey
Oh may all who come behind us find us faithful"